


Lights for the Emperor

by tend



Category: Yuu Yuu Hakusho
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-05
Updated: 2010-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-05 20:55:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tend/pseuds/tend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An estimated half of one percent of Japan's population is Christian.  An estimated seventy-three percent of the general public celebrate Christmas by eating a cake.  An estimated zero percent of demons care. (Or: why Hiei is having a hard time adjusting to ningenkai, and how Kurama does--or doesn't--make it easier for him.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lights for the Emperor

**Author's Note:**

> All cultural notes/credits are located at the end. Technically I've set this piece in the future, after the conclusion of the series, but seeing as I still haven't seen the end (!!!), I totally cop to its divergent nature. Please treat it kindly.
> 
> Additionally, while I do strive to avoid limited binaries regarding submissive/dominant, I nevertheless devote a lot of subtext here to those questions of power and control which get naturally brought up in any relationship, human or demon. In related words, while they are neither of them Sensitive Boys, Hiei and Kurama are still bonking in this. If that bothers you, please remove yourself from the premises and let the rest of us get on with our gay.
> 
> Also, this is a STRONG mature. I almost marked it explicit, but couldn't quite justify it in the end. If you think I made a mistake and should increase the rating RIGHT NOW, just let me know.

The first thing Hiei noticed was the stove, which was on.

Mostly this was because it was the first place he ended up settling after climbing through the apartment window, walking across the counter to perch, stooped, on top of the coil burners. This location was, in its limited surroundings, indisputably the single best spot to survey the entire kitchenette from, and as such had earned his tacit approval within the last few months. It was, then, due to this intersection of proclivity and routine that he ultimately noticed the heat rising through the soles of his shoes.

The heat itself didn't bother him particularly (he'd be a poor excuse for a fire demon if it did); and quite apart from that, it was coming from the inside of the stove, not from the burners themselves. No danger, then, of either the kitchenette or his clothes going up.

The fact that the stove was on did, however, strike him as odd, an abnormality; not something to be alarmed by, but intriguing. Kurama very rarely cooked anything in the oven, and even more rarely in the early afternoon.

Perplexed, Hiei put his hands on the warm metal edge and leaned over, peering through the window at the glowing interior. He'd never taken much notice of it before, and wasn't particularly impressed having now come to the fact. It was just a box, black and plain, well kept, with two steel baking racks taking up relatively equal amounts of space.

And there, sitting harmlessly on the top rack, was a cake.

For some reason Hiei almost laughed. Stifling the strange impulse (laughing would draw attention to himself, and if Kurama hadn't noticed his presence yet, he certainly wasn't going to announce it--not like that, at least), he narrowed his eyes and examined the offensive object instead. He realized after a moment of this that he was half-expecting it to disappear, like a bizarre figment of his imagination, or a badly remembered dream.

Frustratingly enough, the still-browning cake didn't disappear. It even had the audacity to continue cooking.

Hiei's frown deepened.

Sitting back up, he twisted neatly around to peer at the stove clock--overwritten currently by a timer counting down from fifteen minutes and thirty-two seconds--and couldn't decide whether it had just begun or was just finally reaching its end. He sat straight again and began to stare intently at the far wall.

The air smelled like flour and eggs. He took a few seconds to process this fact, then turned his attention to locating Kurama.

It only took an instant, a discreet bit of mental probing, to find him in the bedroom; a stroke of luck. Hiei had no desire to be caught inside still wearing his boots, and estimated in this fortunate situation three full seconds for undetected escape back out the window if the thief started in his direction, instead of the usual two.

As this had now become too good an opportunity to waste, Hiei put the cake temporarily out of his mind and stood, resuming his original task: stealing some of Kurama's coffee beans to take back to the temple. (This was the other reason he favored the stove. It sat right next to refrigerator, which in turn sat below the cabinet Kurama had started to hide them in.) Bracing one hand on the edge of the taller appliance, Hiei stood on tiptoe and reached for the cabinet door.

"Hiei, are you there?"

Hiei froze.

"Yes," he called in response, as neutrally as possible, and waited to see whether Kurama would begin walking toward him.

The fox stayed where he was. Probably folding clothes, then. Hiei thought of going to help him. Then he thought of how pointless that would be, and forced himself to forget it.

The sound of cloth snapping as it was shaken reached him faintly through the wall. Definitely folding clothes. "How was Yukina-chan?"

"Fine," Hiei answered shortly, hooking the bottom edge of the cabinet door with his index finger and pulling it silently open. "Happy. It _is_ winter. What the hell are you making a cake for?"

"My mother. She likes to celebrate Christmas by baking one. I wanted to save her the trouble this year."

The cabinet was empty. Hiei swore internally in two different makai dialects, closing the door again and preparing himself for another week of spying on the redhead to find out where he'd hidden them this time. And damn Kurama for warding the smell of them away; this had all been much easier before that.

"That reminds me, I want you to stay off the stove. The cake might sink if you jostle it."

Oh.

Hiei decided that this was as good a time as any to leave, and promptly did just that. Discretion was, after all, the better part of valor, as the ningen were so fond of saying.

It wasn't until he was safely on the roof of the apartment building that he registered what Kurama had said about his mother, and began to hope against all the hope that they wouldn't be spending another pointless ningen holiday with her. He'd barely been able to handle Labor Thanksgiving Day last month.

He began to ponder the merits of having something urgent in makai come up immediately.

~

So of course he'd immediately gone to stand on the stove.

Doubtless he'd been going for the coffee beans, which made Kurama's decision that morning to hide them in the utensil drawer at the bottom of the stove all the more immediately satisfying. Especially when the fire demon had managed, in his three minutes indoors _all day_, to ruin the first cake. Kurama rolled his eyes, turning over to stare out the window on the opposite side of the room, and refocused his attention on watching the slow crawl of car lights as they inched high across the faces of the buildings surrounding his apartment.

The combination of street lamps, advertisements, and vehicles in this busy part of the city sent a startling variety of shifting colors (yellow, white, red, green) washing through the shadows on his wall, bright lights to relieve the bedroom in patches from total darkness, a nocturnal display he'd needed weeks to adjust to. Once it became commonplace, though, he found he enjoyed it--the clean lines, the overt decoration.

It was a trait of Youko's that had carried over, he supposed; a taste for the kind of elegant resplendence which this ningen hub had in remarkably plentiful supply, a satisfyingly eclectic mix of modern power and ancient tradition. Down the street he knew a woman who sold ikebana arrangements, and next door to her a comic shop, and beside that a game store. Three small Shinto shrines were ritually built and torn down within a seven block radius of his apartment, and that was just within the limits of the city proper.

In comparison with such scope, this whole thing with the cake did seem rather funny, as did most irritations. But Kurama didn't live bound to that view, and this was all much larger than one ruined cake.

The problem was that there was just no _excuse_ for it anymore. Hiei lived for all intents and purposes in ningenkai now, a world where there was no longer room for him to cling so thoroughly to old habits. Most importantly he had to stop scaling the apartment building just to get inside--if not to be polite, then at least to respect the fact that Kurama lived directly in the city now, where uninformed humans would definitely find it strange (if not a total breach of the law) to see someone climbing a six-story building to dive through a window. Kurama was running out of patience for it. He didn't doubt Hiei's ability to avoid notice, but it was nevertheless an important symbolic change, and one Hiei was simply refusing to make.

Kurama bit his lower lip gently, working it between his front teeth for several seconds before abruptly rolling back onto his other side, suddenly uncomfortable with facing the outdoors. Shifting to draw the blankets under his chin, he drew in the deepest breath he could hold, then let it out slowly into his pillow, centering himself.

Hiei hadn't come back yet. Kurama wasn't counting the hours, though eleven had gone by all the same. He began to plan what he would say when the demon finally decided to show his face.

Twin beams of yellow light shifted and flickered along his wall; were broken in a slow, traveling arc by the lights of another passing car, then joined again and were still. Kurama let out a second breath, eyes tracing the edges of the shadows. His body began to slow.

On second thought, he was too tired to be thinking so hard about this. It was only a cake, after all. The second one had been better anyway.

Kurama let his eyes slide half-shut and decisively put Hiei out of his mind, allowing it to go blank instead in the face of the lights, watching them break and re-form in unpredictable shapes across the wall. He thought of nothing.

-

Kurama was half asleep when he heard the window open a half hour later, swinging almost noiselessly inward. A rustling of cloth followed. Knowing immediately who it was, the former youko could easily envision Hiei lifting his legs inside, one small hand reaching back to pull the ends of his coat inside. Still coming awake, he less successfully tried to imagine some hapless passerby in the street below staring up and gawking, and almost laughed. Then he remembered that he needed to be unamused with the other demon when they spoke if he had any hope of making his point, and promptly got control of himself.

It was a surprise to hear Hiei immediately remove his shoes, and an even greater one to hear him setting them neatly beneath the sill, shutting the window as soon as he'd finished. The winter draft that had been slipping in was cut abruptly short, leaving Kurama very close to shivering.

Now was the time to roll over. Kurama proceeded to do just that, shifting once more to his other side and fixing a stare on the little demon. He made certain that the sheets fell around his waist when he moved, showing that he was naked from the middle up.

Hiei was not looking at him, leaning against the sill quietly with his hands behind his back. Kurama waited patiently, tapping his fingers against the mattress to pass the seconds, until finally he was rewarded with red eyes rising to meet his own, making a very brief show of contact before dropping once more to the ground. Hiei stepped away from the window a moment later and began to undress.

Kurama let his shoulders relax, only vaguely aware of having tensed them in the first place. Nakedness meant he was going to stay the rest of the night, if not more, which meant he was also ready to defend himself. That was all the invitation Kurama needed. He held the sheets up when Hiei approached a moment later, allowing the smaller individual to situate himself comfortably along the length of his body.

They lay quiet for a moment, listening to the slow late-night traffic in the streets below and waiting for the bed to warm through again. It was the same bed he had slept in as a child, moved directly from his mother's house to this apartment, and smelled as much like ashes now as it once had like softener and bleach and the peculiar after-scent of home. Kurama rested his right hand against Hiei's side and left it there, absorbing the rise-and-fall sensation of his breathing through his fingertips and palm. Hiei shuddered slightly. It had always been difficult for him to relax.

"I wish you'd drink less coffee," Kurama began.

A few seconds dragged by. Hiei broke the silence by quietly asking, "Was it ruined?"

Completely ignoring his first comment, then. His voice, lowered in their proximity, vibrated very slightly against Kurama's sternum, where he was resting the top edge of his forehead.

"Oh, yes," Kurama said lightly, almost smiling. It was difficult to be stern when he was already half-asleep and comfortable, and when Hiei had apparently managed to make himself feel guilty enough on his own, but this was important. "Which brings me back to my original point."

Kurama could sense discomfort at that statement, most of all in the way Hiei shifted slightly, rubbing his bangs inadvertently into the hollow of Kurama's throat. "I wouldn't have been on the stove if you hadn't warded them in the first place," he muttered at last, almost sullenly

Ah. So he wasn't going to apologize. Kurama almost sighed, shaking his head. "Don't be childish, Hiei. You know what I mean. Walking through the door and using a chair like you actually lived here wouldn't hurt."

"Why walk three flights of stairs when the window is right there? It's inefficient."

"Cardiovascular exercise?" Kurama suggested, unable to help himself.

Hiei twitched, mouth lifting in a half-smirk. "Maybe if I had a _heart_, fool," he muttered, and allowed another moment of silence to pass. Then he sighed, almost imperceptibly, the muscles of his side finally relaxing beneath Kurama's hand. "We could both be less childish."

"But it's a childish argument," Kurama countered, at last giving in and allowing himself to smile. "All I want is for you to use the front door when you visit, to take your shoes off inside the apartment, and to stop stealing from my supplies. They're all very reasonable requests. We shouldn't even be arguing in the first place."

"...hm."

Kurama lifted an eyebrow at this rather dissatisfying response. "I'll start locking the windows."

"You won't."

_That_ nettled. "I don't make empty threats," Kurama murmured, trying to remove the instinctual challenging note from his voice.

Another car's headlights swept along the wall, a clinical blue. Hiei made a surprisingly dismissive noise. "Breaking in would be simple. Why waste your precious time?"

"Because you know this is much larger than that," Kurama said quietly; and then, sweetly, "And because I know for a fact that my mother is convinced I'm _dying_ of loneliness here, and would happily keep me company for some time if I asked her to. I've noticed that she likes to sit and read beside windows the older she gets. Better light."

Hiei was conspicuously silent for a moment. Then: "That's low, Kurama."

"And childish."

Hiei shifted with a small, barely audible grunt of irritation. "Point taken."

Kurama suffered the overpowering urge to smile in triumph, but pushed it back down, not seeing any real point in rubbing Hiei's face in anything.

The conversation lapsed into silence then, Hiei closing his eyes and shifting until he could rest his head on the pillow, careful not to dislodge Kurama's arm from his waist in the process. The thief half-watched him, vision loosely focused, and decided that it would be best to change the subject, the old one being exhausted. "I'm going to take the surviving cake to mother tomorrow."

"Mm."

Kurama shifted slightly, turning his head to dislodge some hair from beneath his shoulder. "You wouldn't be unwelcome after I've returned. If you're inclined, of course."

For a moment Hiei was unresponsive. Then, keeping his eyes closed, he said in a carefully veiled tone, "I should have some time."

That was a relief. Kurama felt a smile fix itself to his face unconsciously. "Thank you."

He felt comfortable enough to sleep then, closing his eyes at last and evening his breath. He had been worried that the demon would come up with an excuse to avoid him, irritated by his continued insistence that he act more human here. Never mind that it wasn't an unreasonable request; Hiei wasn't a particularly reasonable person. Kurama was learning to deal with this. His recommending qualities outweighed his faults by leaps and bounds, which was the important thing.

"The Sapporo light display should be up now," he heard himself muse softly some time later, breaking the comfortable silence.

Hiei jerked slightly, as close to the edge of sleep as Kurama. Eyes closed, senses heightened by the removal of his vision, the redhead could _feel_ him blinking, trying to make sense of what he'd just said.

"...you mentioned that was unusual on this island," he murmured at last, voice even deeper than usual. "Weeks ago."

"Yes," Kurama murmured back, drawing closer for warmth, nose and forehead coming to rest near his. "For national holidays and festivals and--oh. _Oh_, I'd forgotten, today _was_ a national holiday." Kurama grinned abruptly as he remembered which one, pleased with the irony. "Of course, I doubt you care, but you could pay your own respects in the morning."

"To?"

"His majesty the Emperor. He turned seventy-five yesterday."

~

They had learned to move around one another in the kitchen years ago. This had only really started to become useful to them lately, after they began to make a habit of eating with one another whenever possible; a practice which, in turn, had started after they began having sex.

This latter was a more recent occurrence than Kurama sometimes remembered. Mostly this was because the two months which had passed since Hiei had first climbed through his new window and taken a rather surprising initiative (after completely ignoring him for the entirety of the month before, irritated that he had moved) had already begun to form a distinct and new period of time in his mind, displacing the months before as something old, another age and life.

Kurama was, after all, a creature of order; he had always tended toward thinking of his life in stages or steps, one platform of evolution expanding slowly, until at last it was tall and wide enough to allow him access to the next. This new moment with Hiei was making its own stage, which gave it the flavor of timelessness.

Given the events of the previous night, and Hiei's covert agreement to cooperate, Kurama rewarded him by unwarding the coffee, and even gave him the option of making a pot. In return, however, he reserved first rights to the water currently heating on the stove, and also refused to give the fire demon any extra room for his task, moving around freely with his own business instead. The kitchenette was far from spacious, which made this the absolute perfect degree of irritating to the smaller demon, who was forced to make room for his larger companion.

And who was trying very hard at the moment to pretend that he didn't care, leaning with forced placidity against the stove and staring without blinking at the coil beneath the kettle, the edges of his eyes contracting every time Kurama casually brushed against him, until he began to look like he'd acquired a minor tic overnight.

It was funny, actually.

Kurama stifled a grin, tipping the last spoonful of tea into his plain ceramic pot and replacing the lid. It wouldn't do to tease him too much, but it was tempting to take advantage, as always. He didn't have many opportunities.

"Nice day," he observed casually.

"Hm," Hiei replied. His eyes flickered toward the window, then resolutely back to the kettle.

Kurama, moving to replace the tea, brushed one hip against his side. Hiei's eye contracted again, his lips thinning.

Biting his lip, Kurama returned to his teapot, drumming his fingers against its edges as he stifled the threatening laughter.

Turning toward the window for a distraction, he had to admit that it was in fact a very nice day, the season being what it was; the light was weak, but present nonetheless, pale yellow and tempered by a cold, biting wind that made the window rattle occasionally in its frame. Kurama had already taken his jacket from the closet, hanging it near one of the heaters in anticipation of the trip to his mother's.

"You'll be stopping by this evening, then?" he asked, not looking at Hiei. The demon hadn't said anything of the sort, but Kurama was planting the suggestion, not reinforcing it.

Again, Hiei waited a few seconds before responding. "Something like that."

"I take it you won't want any of the cake, then."

Kurama glanced over at this, and almost laughed at the look on his face. Not quite scandalized, but certainly walking the edge. "_No_."

Shrugging, Kurama moved close to him and reached around from behind, turning off the burner as the pot began to whistle. "More for her, I suppose," he murmured, very near the side of Hiei's face; the shorter demon flinched, but remained resolutely still. Smiling, Kurama lifted the pot off the burner and moved away to pour.

A moment of silence passed.

Then Hiei snorted quietly, pressing one palm to the still red burner, absorbing some of the heat. "You're a complete bastard, you know."

"Mm," Kurama hummed in agreement, grinning outright now. "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer tea? It's grey dragon."

~

Kurama had never quite expected to work in a bookstore at any point in his life. He was fond of reading--considered it one of the richer indulgences in life, in fact--but the thought had never struck him of actually earning money for handling books, answering questions about books, being surrounded by books. It had surprised him immensely when he grew to enjoy the work, as much as he ever enjoyed anything in ningenkai. It was a pale sensation compared to the thrill of the chase, the excitement of struggling every second for his life, but here, in this phase of things, it was enough.

The job had arrived by sheer chance, the kind of thing he had only to stand still to receive. His first term at university had brought a rush of acquaintances that he found both surprisingly useful and easy to keep at a comfortable distance, one of which had informed him of the opening at Aidokusho.

All things considered, it was a very small shop, located in an equally small area of the city, where it stood in a state of constant competition with the nearby Kinokuniya. Many of the university students preferred to frequent it, however, and the manga section was healthy enough, which tended to draw in a reasonable number of people to keep it in business.

A lot of Kurama's time there was spent simply cleaning up after the standing readers, or gently ushering them away from the shelves when they didn't notice how they were blocking a new patron's access. But mostly it was a quiet job, and one which allowed him to further improve his understanding of ningen culture.

It happened on very rare occasions that he felt a certain, filtered sort of gratitude for his rebirth, as it allowed him an unparalleled opportunity to become versed in two very different modes of existence. It was a completely worthless experiment in all matters beyond these generally abstract ones, but he hoped in the future, once his mother had died and he could return without regrets to a life in makai, that it would give him an advantage. Certainly it made it much easier now for him to communicate with the human contingent of his team, and it was this effect that he hoped would carry over.

So three days a week he worked in Aidokusho, smiled for his co-workers and brought them gifts as necessary, and made careful, detailed note of the ways they responded to him; which actually worked to curry favor with him, and which he wouldn't help for any price.

Asahi Daisuke was the young man he ended up working with most often; a relatively taciturn, but not humorless pre-med student in the same year as Kurama. His work occasionally overlapped with the thief's own study of botany, enough that they had things to talk about in the slow periods.

"Did you need to get home early?" was Asahi's first question on the last night in January. Kurama peered at him curiously, halfway through re-pricing a stack of books, until the human offered a vague smile and elaborated: "To pick anything up for setsubun, I mean. You said you didn't want to go out in the rush."

Kurama pasted on a friendly smile, turning back to his work. "I picked up some soybeans yesterday. Thank you, though."

A moment of silence passed. Kurama waited for him to ask his next question, but Asahi simply sat and fidgeted and pretended to do other things.

Fighting the urge to roll his eyes, Kurama picked up the stack of books and moved toward their original shelf, silently cursing the in-bred convention of overly-layered speech in this culture. It wouldn't be half so irritating if people weren't so _bad_ at it... "And you? How have your preparations gone?"

"Well..." Asahi laughed quietly, and let the statement trail off.

Good lord. Back turned, Kurama did roll his eyes this time, restacking the shelf with quick, efficient motions. "Nothing left when you tried yesterday?"

"Something like that."

"Well, it's not particularly busy," Kurama reflected, wondering even as he said it why he was being so nice. It wasn't as though the shop was difficult to manage alone (they never worked in combinations greater than three, in fact), but it was the principle of the thing. "And I do need more hours."

Turning, he watched in detached amusement as Asahi grinned widely, hopping up out of his chair with an awkward half-bow. "Thanks, Minamino-kun!"

Sometimes he was just too soft.

~

"You're late."

"And foolish as well," Kurama sighed, kicking his shoes off in the genkan and closing the door at the same time. "I stayed to close the shop."

Hiei was sitting on the couch by the tokonoma, where was to all appearances halfway through resoling one of his boots. Kurama didn't even want to know where he'd gotten the tools for that. Or the leather. "Wasn't the ningen supposed to do that tonight?"

"Yes," Kurama replied tiredly, and tossed his coat over the back of the couch before moving into the kitchen. "Do we have time for tea?"

"Botan should be here by midnight."

An hour, then. "Good." Checking the water level in the kettle, Kurama refilled it from the tap before setting it to heat, warming his hands over the burner as it grew hot.

Soft footsteps approached from behind, until Hiei settled against the doorframe, watching him. "You're cold."

Kurama laughed softly, shaking his head at his own behavior. "I don't know what I was thinking. Can you believe I didn't even wear gloves? I--"

In an instant Hiei was standing behind him, pressed against his back, a living source of unnatural warmth. He'd raised his body temperature.

Really, now. "How uncharacteristic," Kurama murmured, feeling his eyes lid instinctually. He hadn't turned on the kitchen light, and before him the burner was growing brighter and brighter, glowing electric red in the relative dark, the outlines of things showing only dimly in the soft light coming from the living room.

"It seems to be going around tonight," Hiei murmured flatly back, pushing both hands inside Kurama's sweater to pass over and over his skin, stroking firmly.

So _that_ was why he'd been irritated by Kurama's lateness. Turning off the burner without a word, the redhead twisted around slowly, and--yes, that was definitely arousal. He must have been quite irritated.

It was frustrating, really. If he'd been home earlier they would have had time for both tea and this.

Smiling, Kurama wasted no time in sliding one hand past the waistband of Hiei's pants, taking hold and squeezing, watching his face closely. A very attractive flush crawled up his neck, but he remained otherwise unaffected, only lifting one eyebrow at Kurama before tugging sharply at his shirt. "Take that off, damnit."

"In a minute," Kurama murmured, leaning down to begin mouthing at his neck, tasting delicately and squeezing again. Hiei made an impatient noise, but submitted with little argument to the perusal, even tilting his head slightly. Kurama had to remind himself to pull away before he could leave a mark. He'd be wearing his scarf, but there was no guarantee it wouldn't be lost in battle if it came to that tonight, and the last thing he wanted to do was spend time inventing stories for the demon. Hiei wouldn't even try to explain, and the other tantei wouldn't stop until they knew everything, or at least thought they did.

There were better places to do this, like the bed, or for that matter the couch, but Kurama was reluctant to leave the dark of the kitchen; Hiei appeared to be equally so, and pressed Kurama down to the floor with little compunction, his breathing loud in the confined space

It took several minutes for Kurama to coax him onto his back, but it was worth it in the end, particularly once he finally managed to loosen both of their pants enough for them to slide together.

And then Hiei flipped him right back over, eyes wide and glowing in the dark, remarkably similar in tone to the burner. The little bastard. Kurama growled at him, but Hiei growled right back, straddling him firmly and digging the heels of his palms into his shoulders, giving no quarter. Kurama considered shoving him off, but settled in the end on putting up just enough of a fight to express his irritation, more for the sake of struggling than any real desire to do so. Hiei would get even more dominant in the future if he showed too much neck here, and Kurama wasn't in the mood to consider having to disabuse him of the notion later.

Besides, it was nice sometimes to simply be ridden without having to think too much about it, to plant his feet against the floor and meet unshakeable resistance. It would have been better to be inside him, but there wasn't anything readily at hand for that, and Kurama wanted satisfaction, not blood. He wasn't quite certain what Hiei wanted, but he somehow doubted it was that.

But then again, Hiei had never really stopped surprising him. That was one of the reasons Kurama had chosen him for a partner.

The little demon slid forward abruptly on top of him, hands still bruising his shoulders, and without warning Kurama was half engulfed in tight, slick heat.

"Do it," Hiei said sharply, pushing himself farther down.

Kurama's mouth fell open before he could check himself, breath stuttering in his chest. "You already--?"

And abruptly Hiei was grinning, all sharp white teeth in the soft shadows. He was losing some grip on his human form. "I think you call that economy," he drawled, and with one final shove took in all of him; Kurama could see sweat shining on the bridge of his nose. "I had the time, didn't I?"

~

_It had become a small matter of physicality._

It had become a matter of stealing the smaller touches--touches to the neck, the jaw, the wrist--to convey interest. Hiei had already confessed to a certain connection of mentality (a touching of their minds, so to speak, like one who has just realized that he can move his body in a way previously undiscovered, and finds it is wonderful), which made it now a matter of drawing boundaries.

Kurama tapped his pencil while thinking about this, counting a waltz beat at double and triple times before slowing his hand to a simple four-four, placing a new dot for every second of contemplation, like a clock.

Hiei hadn't been around for a month. It had been a month (give or take the odd, forgettable day) since he had informed the other that he'd be moving, away from his mother, to the heart of the city. Hiei hadn't seemed to like the idea at the time, which Kurama had assumed would pass quickly, like many of his irritations.

Then he'd found himself moving alone, and came out feeling a little wounded. If Hiei hadn't wanted to carry boxes, he could have just said as much.

As it stood, only three boxes were left in the corner of the living room now, two of them open, one half empty. He was having fun counting the number as it dwindled, filling his new apartment slowly, making it his with every book, every dish. He was creating something distinct--not so much in the objects with which he decorated, because these were merely things, many of which were copies, or had been copied--but in the way he put these things together. He was creating a place worthy of being called home, something that he would be proud to maintain and deem **his** and share. If he ever got the opportunity.

Hiei hadn't been around for a month. He hadn't seen the apartment yet. He hadn't helped fill it.

Kurama wasn't angry at him, or even lonely or confused, which he understood were typical feelings for humans when so-called partners were gone. He was, more than anything, impatient; impatient to find out what was on the other demon's mind, to talk to him, to work out whether or not they really **were** partners, to perhaps let him experience this thing that was his. He very rarely gave anyone this opportunity. It made him eager for a response.

It had never occurred to him to doubt that Hiei would come back. That wasn't the way of things. Hiei was solitary and moody and easily irritated and often frustrating and stubborn and reluctant to place faith, but he was not inconstant. He was not disloyal. His faith was almost impossible to destroy once given, and Kurama had earned it a great many times over, in blood and action.

The redhead drew a small circle on the page, watching light reflect off the graphite. The sun was setting behind him, staining the white wall in shades of orange reminiscent of fruit skins. He drew another circle, beginning to tap the fingers of his other hand against the desk.

The only problem now was physical. Hiei didn't trust his hands. He trusted him with information and his back in a fight, but not with drawing close. Kurama had done what he could to make him comfortable--had even leaned over a week before Hiei's disappearance, boldly, and kissed him in parting, to be met with a wooden face he hadn't seen in over a year, and a soft, surprising vulnerability, beaten and quickly smothered behind uncertain red eyes--and everything now sat in Hiei's hands. He hadn't expected the kiss. He hadn't pushed Kurama away, either.

Not that sex was necessary. Kurama, more than anything, just wanted to know. Hiei was going to be his last partner if it in fact came to that (this was an indisputable fact in his mind, as definite as the overlapping of the worlds), and he wanted to understand what was and was not acceptable. He had experience with partners.

But Hiei did not. Hiei was still very young, and had never willingly let anyone else into his mind. Hiei had made certain that **he** would be the one to ride in other people's heads, to invade their thoughts.

Kurama was waiting to see him again. He was waiting for the final definition to be applied to a situation four years in the building. He was waiting to take Hiei's wrist in his hand and keep it still, immobile, and give and take submission freely, and show that he was capable of creating equality.

~

Setsubun proper came and went with little incident; Kurama skipped classes for the day in order to go on another solo mission for Koenma, a brief piece reconnaissance. He was back before five o'clock in the evening, and had just enough time to scatter a handful of toasted soybeans before his apartment door and shout the traditional refrain before his neighbors could get suspicious, at which point he was able to quietly sweep them up and throw them away unobserved.

It wasn't that he lacked respect for this tradition, per se, but rather that it felt indescribably silly to have to banish himself from his own home just to keep up appearances. Also the beans _stung_, for all he tried to avoid allowing them to be tainted by the general public spirit. He had spent enough years burning his mouth to please his mother; he was looking forward to enjoying a mild dinner and ignoring the world for one evening.

Hiei--for once--had the perfect excuse to climb in through the kitchen window that evening, though Kurama seriously doubted he had sensed the blessed threshold beforehand. The way he wrinkled his nose in its direction upon stepping inside was rather satisfying, however.

"You did that to your own territory?" he asked incredulously by way of greeting, dropping his scarf over the back of one of the dining chairs.

Kurama could only shrug helplessly, offering a mild, "It _is_ traditional," for explanation, speaking over the sound of his knife as he industriously sliced vegetables for dinner.

"It's traditional for bake-nezumi to cut their little toes off when they reach maturity, too," Hiei muttered disdainfully, dropping his boots under the same chair and wandering out toward the living room. "That doesn't mean I have to do the same."

There was a whole host of more or less humorous responses Kurama could choose to that, from _Good thing you haven't reached maturity and had to face that decision, then_, to the general _And you became well acquainted with bake-nezumi at which exciting point in your travels?_ But for some reason Hiei's tone nettled him, and he responded to that instead of to the words themselves: "I suppose it's fortunate you don't live here, then."

Hiei froze in the doorway. Kurama was tempted to do the same, shocked at himself, but forced his hands to continue working without hesitation, mouth set. It was just one rude comment for another. It was a matter of equity.

Then Hiei resumed walking with very obvious determination, ignoring him completely. "Yukina wished you a happy new year."

Oh, Inari. Kurama set the knife down without a word, bracing his hands against the counter's edge and staring angrily out the window. Of _course_ she had. And of _course_ that would be the one thing Hiei would know to pull out in response to best make him feel like a fool. _Which of us is past a thousand here?_

"Best wishes to her as well," Kurama murmured once he had sufficiently gathered himself, well aware that Hiei would catch every word. "Tell her thank you if you see her before me, please."

Idly he wondered what kind of luck they had just managed to bring in.

~

Hiei wasn't exactly a master of self reflection, but even he could recognize that the reason Kurama's seasonal jibe had stung so much was because it was true.

He didn't really live in the apartment with Kurama. He was a frequent visitor by any standard, even occasionally a guest, but never a resident. It would still be most appropriate to say he lived in the woods around Genkai's temple--which was possibly embarrassing given the amount of time he'd had by this point to establish a residence which had a roof at the very least, but not something he let himself think about enough to really sting.

The root of the problem lay, as far as he could determine, in his continued inability to effectively split his loyalties three ways. Kurama, Yukina, Koenma; each required special treatment, and how exactly he was supposed to avoid giving preference to one at the expense of the others continued to elude him. True, he had figured out how to deal with Koenma by now (by relegating him to the lowest comparative position and then ignoring him as much as possible), but Kurama and Yukina remained problematic.

It all became particularly difficult when he factored in Yukina's continued lack of knowledge regarding the reason for his attentiveness to her, and Kurama's continuous silent pressing for him to hurry up and finalize the rapidly solidifying bond. And that concerned Hiei, too.

Altogether it was a hell of a lot to wrestle with, with the ultimate result of Hiei turning away from making decisions about anything. Things were, after all, holding with relative stability in their current positions; Kurama spent a lot of time irritated with him, but he continued to let him visit, and Yukina had yet to question his behavior.

So really, it couldn't hurt (much) to just wait. Things would eventually come to a head no matter what he did, and if all the choices ended up falling to Kurama when that time arrived, better for him. Distantly he was aware that this was neither a particularly mature, nor a particularly effective way of dealing with things, but Hiei was a creature of instinct, and not one that had survived all this time by taking undue risks.

~

_"I've never had a partner."_

"Oh?" Kurama said mildly, but Hiei knew very well that he'd already been aware of this. He debated calling the fox out on it, but decided in the end that it wasn't worth the effort. Getting answers to his questions was much more important.

"It seems like a foolish risk to me," he continued, crossing one leg over the other and resisting the urge to drum his heel against the wall under Kurama's windowsill. His mother would hear that much noise. The house wasn't **that** big.

Kurama's responding smile was almost mocking, and held that odd, reflective quality it tended to adopt when he recalled memories of his former life. It made him look much older, despite his comparatively diminutive stature. "You think?"

"I wouldn't have said it if I didn't," Hiei defended sharply. **Answer, idiot. Stop dancing.**

Kurama obliged readily enough. "It's a simple process, really. And I think you're not taking into consideration the benefits. Companionship, reliable trust, pooled resources--even a source of sexual satisfaction if both parties are physically attracted to one another. I wouldn't say two halves of one whole, but certainly two attuned instruments in harmony."

It was frustrating to admit that it did sound--comforting, Hiei supposed. Not necessarily appealing, but at least understandable. Certainly he had no intention of falling into such a trap himself, but sometimes it was good to pick Kurama's mind for these details, to take advantage of the experience and knowledge his age had given him.

And it was very nearly appalling how bad a job he was doing of convincing himself that this was all true. That he hadn't been wondering if Kurama--if it was even possible--for months now.

But all he had to say was, "Hm," quietly, for Kurama's face to break into a gentle grin.

"Well," the thief said, and abruptly closed his book, turning around the stare across the room at him. "At any rate, I think I forgot to mention that I'm moving in a few days. Care to help?"

~

Hiei interrupted Kurama's homework one evening toward the end of February by stepping close behind his chair, chest to his shoulders, and dropping his face into the crook of his neck, using his nose to push aside the lapels of his green button down. One of his hands crept around to grasp gently at the shirt's front, deftly undoing the top three buttons before leaving curled fingers tucked into the hollow of his throat.

Well, _this_ was one of the many reasons why he usually went to the library to do his schoolwork. Kurama almost said as much, but ended up smiling and tipping his head slightly backwards instead.

"This is familiar," he heard himself saying quietly, absently enjoying the way the skin of his throat buzzed against Hiei's fingers when he spoke.

"Hm?" the fire demon murmured, mouth falling fully open on the skin he'd successfully revealed.

Kurama grinned lopsidedly, shifting in his chair. "When mother and I lived with others in a pack--my first mother, the youko--there were seven others around my age. We used to sneak up and bite one another from behind whenever one of us wasn't paying attention. You might say it was a game. I only ever got caught twice." Hiei did something very interesting with his tongue at this point, striking a nerve that literally made Kurama jump and sigh, humming a small note of approval before slowly closing his eyes. "That's nice."

"Good," Hiei murmured, unbuttoning his shirt the rest of the way to his belt. Kurama's smile widened.

He barely even hissed--only dropped his pencil, in fact--when Hiei's teeth sank gently into his neck.

~

Kurama opened his eyes on half darkness mixed with the shifting patterns of the city, all the tones colliding with one another to paint shapes across the ceiling, and was instantly aware of Hiei dressing beside the bed. He turned to look at the demon, fighting his way quickly to his elbows and trying not to wince as the bite, coated around the edges with dry blood, tugged uncomfortably at the surrounding skin. "Has something happened?" he asked softly, surprised by his own tone.

Hiei lifted an eyebrow at his expression, tucking his shirt into his pants with one hand and reaching to retrieve a belt with the other. "You said Yuusuke was coming to study in the morning," he said by way of explanation. "I'd rather be somewhere else." Belt looped swiftly around his hips once more, he leaned in and pressed a brief, firm kiss, like a grudging afterthought, to Kurama's mouth before dodging away to continue dressing, almost a supplication for worrying him.

Though it happened rarely, Kurama felt his mind completely devoid of witticisms or clever remarks in that moment, lost instead in watching Hiei go from place to place in his search.

When he finished, scarf tucked firmly beneath his chin once more, Hiei walked back to the bed and paused at his side, reaching out to touch Kurama's neck gently. "Don't forget to wash that," he said at last, then turned and went to the window. He had it open and was balancing on the sill, ready to jump out, when he turned to add over his shoulder, "And don't bother cooking. I'll bring something."

He left then, dropping silently out into the darkness and reaching casually back to shut the window as he fell. Kurama blinked for several full seconds after him, only dully aware of the ache in his neck, before eventually lying flat on the bed again, drawing the sheets fully over his body--it was simply too cold to rest naked and uncovered--and letting himself fall back into sleep.

~

"Holy _shit_," Yuusuke said loudly, leaning directly into his personal space to grab at the collar of his shirt. Yanking it unceremoniously down, he leaned in farther still to stare at the neat semi-circular halves of the bite, washed clean and half-healed. Kurama had forgotten after his shower that morning to wear a more covering shirt. "Did Hiei _bite_ you?"

"Mm," Kurama answered pleasantly, smiling, and reached up to gently dislodge Yuusuke's hand before he could do irreparable damage to the garment. Once free he shut the front door behind the tantei and calmly made his way to the kitchen, where his textbooks were already sitting on the small table in anticipation of the young man's arrival. "Tea?" he offered politely.

Yuusuke, however, was busy frowning in disbelief, trailing unconsciously after Kurama when he moved. "You mean he actually bites?" he muttered under his breath, rubbing his chin in thought.

"Apparently so," Kurama murmured ruefully, lighting the burner beneath the kettle. "Tea?" he offered again, raising his voice a little this time.

"Huh? Oh, sure. Thanks." Yuusuke sounded as though he had only just registered the question, now occupied with settling into the closest chair and leaning back, kicking one of his legs up to rest on the knee of the other and crossing his arms distractedly. It was a perfectly Yuusuke sort of stance, outwardly relaxed, yet somehow radiating an underlying quality of pensive anxiety. Kurama smiled quietly to himself, reaching to retrieve the tin of tea leaves.

"Were the two of you fighting?" Yuusuke demanded suddenly. The concern in his voice was surprisingly obvious.

Kurama was taken off guard by the question. He almost laughed out loud--they had certainly _not_ been fighting--not the kind of fighting Yuusuke was thinking of, at least--but contained himself, reaching to gather the teacups next. "Of course not. I simply wasn't paying attention. What would you like to study first?"

~

_Kurama was sitting at his desk, reading, when he heard the window behind him swing open, and was aware suddenly of a burst of presence, a flare in the back of his mind that he had not felt for over a month. His mouth opened of its own accord on a name, but his voice wouldn't cooperate. He lost his place abruptly in the book (some paragraph about Mesopotamia and ziggurats that wasn't really important), dropping it to the desk, where the spine rattled sharply against the finished wood._

He turned in his chair, and Hiei was much closer than he'd expected, much closer than he usually stood, given the choice. Kurama's mouth was still open, a small, strange smile beginning to tug at its edges.

"That was a long time," he said into the quiet. Hiei looked taller than he was, silhouetted against the open window, the fading light of a long day that only now was beginning to hold meaning coloring the edges of his hair red. Kurama hadn't realized how dark it had gotten.

"I know," Hiei answered. The whites of his eyes were grey in the shadows. Kurama thought of the sad smear of rain clouds.

"You could have said anything." Kurama truly meant it. "I wouldn't have forced you to help. I can move myself."

"Of course you would have." A smirk pulled at the edge of Hiei's mouth, sardonic and quiet. "And you would have gotten me to like it."

Kurama couldn't think of anything to say. He closed his mouth as an afterthought.

"What happens tomorrow?"

"Nothing," Kurama replied, and thought briefly of adding something sarcastic. Instead he murmured, not a little lamely, "It's a Sunday."

"Fine," Hiei said, and was suddenly much closer.

Kurama opened his mouth strictly to defend himself, only to find Hiei using it against him, Hiei tugging him forward by his lapels. Hiei was kissing him, an unashamed and demanding sort of kiss, somehow overpowering and naive and slightly awkward and heady all at once, and Kurama only found himself capable of sitting and taking it in, feeling his eyes trembling open and closed and wondering where the problems had gone.

"Fool," Hiei muttered into his cheek, pinching his side through his shirt. "Do something."

So Kurama did the first thing to come to him, reaching out and cupping half of Hiei's neck in his hand, which he had to push, shaking, beneath the ever-present white scarf, rough and worn in patches over the years. He swallowed, feeling Hiei's breath on his cheek, the way he stiffened ever so slightly at the new contact. He tried to collect himself.

"Relax," he murmured, and couldn't tell which of them he was speaking to.

"Move," Hiei shot back, and reached up to grab his wrist, just a little roughly.

Kurama began to shiver. He pulled the scarf away with his other hand, awareness narrowing as the world around him began to fall away, wall by wall, distancing itself from Hiei and the fading light and a fistful of white cloth in the evening, realizing slowly that there had never been any problems to begin with. Only uncertainties. Hiei turned his head and began to kiss him again, drowning what Kurama now recognized as nerves in sensation. He felt himself smiling, felt his hand warming against Hiei's skin, and enjoyed the temporary smallness of his existence.

He listened to Hiei's breathing, sharp and distinct through his nose, and soon heard his own heartbeat pacing it, the only sound of its kind in the room. Hiei had no heart. They matched one another in other sounds, breath and the rustling of cloth, but Hiei's blood ran without noise.

Then Hiei was leaning over him, pushing him back in the chair, standing between his legs and tugging intermittently at his shirt, making small, attractive, perfectly Hiei sorts of noises as he did, and the world was just him. Kurama felt the scarf slip loosely from his slack fingers to the floor. He felt himself reaching up, beginning to work on the coat.

"Finally," Hiei muttered, lips still on his.

Nothing else was said.

~

Kurama was tired.

His shift had been surprisingly long today, dull and irritating, and he had two papers that needed to be finished by the morning after next; one half written, the other barely begun. This would have been far less of a pain if he'd slept the night before, but having instead spent those twelve hours dealing with other dull and irritating problems, his typically resilient body was finally beginning to complain. He _was_ only half-demon.

Tempted as he was to eat as soon as he got home, Kurama made only a single cup of strong tea, bribed himself with a full meal of gyoza and udon, and got to work instead.

He tapped out the last word of the second paper a few minutes after midnight, promptly decided that he was too tired to eat after all, and proceeded to toss himself (gracefully) into bed, burrowing with a weary sort of satisfaction beneath the single pillow.

He nearly missed the soft _tap-tap_ at the top left pane of the bedroom window as a result.

He almost let himself ignore it--found that it was in fact the most tempting thing he could imagine for several seconds--before duty began to tap its own obnoxious rhythm at the back of his mind, and he thought of Hiei. Forcing his head up a few seconds later, Kurama, gamely battling the overwhelming need to growl his irritation, turned slowly sideways to find out who wanted what, and who was possibly going to die if the request didn't turn out to be important enough.

Botan was drifting in the dark outside his window, pink kimono flapping in a slight breeze as she grinned. She began to wave apologetically once she saw that she had his attention, grin faltering slightly.

Putting his head back under the pillow suddenly sounded very nice, but he urged his body to its feet anyway, rolling his shoulders to work out typing cramps and trying not to glare. Dividing his time between two employers had consequences, he reminded himself. Very _irritating_ consequences, but that was what he got for wanting more than he needed.

The only dull consolation he could conjure for himself was the fifty percent chance that Hiei would be there.

~

They got back to the apartment at roughly four in the morning, not quite brushing against one another as they moved. Once inside Kurama began to fumble for the hall light switch, leaving Hiei to close the door. He gave up after the first two unsuccessful passes, choosing instead to stand perfectly still, taking in deep breaths through his nose.

Hiei, all things considered, felt fine, but Kurama was beginning to look shockingly light on his feet, only half-coordinated. Hiei had started to absently wonder two minutes ago whether he was going to topple down the stairs before they could even reach his door. His face was as collected as ever, but his legs seemed to have no power.

He remembered hearing him mention a very long work shift, then later a night without sleep, but he hadn't put the two together until after they had completed the utterly ridiculous mission Koenma had just sent them on, and had found him having a certain difficulty with keeping his eyes open. It was startling. Hiei could usually forget that Kurama was half-human, after all.

Not now. Examining the redhead's slack face, only semi-visible in the dark, Hiei reached out and tapped his sternum sharply. Kurama stiffened, eyes flickering open. There were light circles beneath them. He met Hiei's gaze silently, reading him for a moment without speech. Then his hand lifted slowly, three of his fingertips moving to rest gently against Hiei's forehead.

Neither of them moved for some seconds. Hiei felt the eyelid of the jagan flicker involuntarily under the light press of his fingers, despite the bandana covering it.

He tried not to think of how much trust this involved. It was too strange, having to willingly hand his weaknesses to someone in such a manner. He thought of the moment when Kurama had slapped blood--his _own_ blood--into the eye, and it still wasn't enough to drive him into striking the hand away, for all the panic it sent tingling through his body.

Sighing noiselessly, Hiei closed all of his eyes for a few short breaths, then opened the main two again and reached out, pressing his own hand over the only half-familiar beat of Kurama's heart. He could feel it through the cloth of his shirt, knew that he'd be able to hear it were they inches apart or standing on opposite sides of a fifteen foot room. It still made it no less strange to think of such a weakness, such an all-powerful, all-important muscle, beating away in _his_ partner's chest. He'd never quite managed to accustom himself to the idea, and still had to struggle with it from day to day.

He'd never gotten comfortable with the vulnerability.

~

Hiei came in through the window again at the end of March, just as the sakura were reaching their peak. Kurama spent that afternoon flower viewing with his mother, then went home and locked all of the windows (for show), sealed them (the real measure), and left a note taped to the main living room window, inked out in neat kana:

_Try not to burn yourself. I'll remove them in one month. The trees are very nice this year; you might consider taking Yukina-chan out in your spare time._

That night he dreamed of Hiei's face drifting outside the bedroom window, staring reproachfully, and woke up the next morning unable to decide whether it had been real or not.

He didn't see Hiei again for two months.

~

The thing was, he could have gone through the front door at any time, even before the month had ended. What it was now was a matter of pride--to climb the stairs and request entrance would be to admit that he'd been wrong; or if not wrong, then at least rude. This place of Kurama's was, after all, still Kurama's; they shared it for meals and sex and companionship, but as Kurama had so neatly pointed out, Hiei had never acquiesced to _living_ there. This called for a certain degree of respect with reference to his behavior that he supposed he was, when all was said and done, rather inclined to lack.

Soft rainstorms came to Tokyo in late April. The humans wore dark coats and haori as they walked from place to place for business, women in traditional sandals and girls in enormous bright boots, seas of umbrellas moving back and forth in colorful plastic flocks, like some strange breed of bird; see-through or red or orange, or decorated with kanji, with plum blossoms, with bamboo or pinstripes. Hiei watched them from the eaves of office buildings, incurious, but somehow unable to look away. He could not understand them.

He lost his appetite three weeks into his expulsion. All the same he ate, pushing rice from the temple and red meat from the game he trapped on its grounds into his mouth. He became distracted.

It was distressing to think that the bond could have set in so fully already, that the need to verify his chosen companion's well-being could get so overwhelming so quickly. He wondered, frustrated, if this was somehow easier for Kurama by virtue of his human blood. If he could sleep for more than a few hours at a time without waking suddenly, or feeling like he was suffocating, or stumbling out into warm night rain to stop and stare at the moon peeking through the clouds, and wonder what was happening to him.

They hadn't exchanged blood yet--not formally, and that was the last thing. That was all that was left. On the worst nights Hiei considered returning to makai for good before this could happen, forgetting everything and setting aside the danger of sharing himself. He told himself that Kurama wasn't worth the risk, that brilliant and talented as he was, nothing made the bond ultimately worthwhile.

Then he would wake up and wonder what kind of coward he was, and if what age perhaps gave to a wise demon was nothing more than courage. Courage to act in defiance of instinct, and courage to risk the body against precedent.

It was this thought that finally let him return.

~

The lights on Kurama's floor were all off, testament to the hour. Hiei stood for a long time staring at the dark wood of his door, skin tingling at the closeness, the proximity. He half wanted the door to open for him, for Kurama to do all the work. But it was only half a desire.

The opening was soundless, of course. Hiei could just imagine Kurama crouching there the day he moved in with oil and a rag, rubbing each hinge and mechanism until Enma himself couldn't have produced more than the hiss of wind rushing past as it opened and shut.

Kurama was inevitably waiting just inside. Specifically he was sitting on the step over the genkan, his feet lost between several pairs of neatly arranged shoes, staring up as Hiei stepped inside. There were no lights on in here, either. Hiei shut the door.

For a long time they simply stared at one another in the dark, breathing and readjusting, relaxing in the familiar smells. Then Kurama reached up for one of his hands, pressed his nose to his palm and took a deep breath. His skin was dry to the touch, slightly feverish. Hiei was glad he wasn't the only one.

"I shouldn't be surprised," he muttered reflectively, flexing his hand. Kurama's tongue slid out, a spot of wet warmth against his skin. "I know how determined you can be about order."

"You stayed away too long," Kurama whispered, his eyes closed. "It's done some damage."

"Then fix it," Hiei ordered, and knelt.

Kurama leaned forward as soon as he came within range, moving Hiei's hand down to his waist, positioning him such that he could bury his nose against his neck, breathing deeply. Hiei crushed the urge to tear him apart, wondering if this in particular would ever get easier, and slid Kurama's shirt up his abdomen, wanting to feel his skin, the strangeness of his heartbeat.

The thief moved his hands to Hiei's back, opened his mouth against his neck, and stayed that way for a long time; listening to Hiei's body in return, and its unbroken silence.

It was enough.

 

_Owari_

**Author's Note:**

> Some information that could possibly make what you just read slightly less vague and frustrating (maybe):  
> \- Labor Thanksgiving Day is actually a real holiday in Japan--you can totally wiki it.  
> \- the genkan is that little area beside the door and/or entranceway in a Japanese house or apartment where one removes one's shoes; it's typically lowered, so one takes a tiny step up to enter the residence proper.  
> \- the tokonoma is the small alcove traditionally found in Japanese houses and apartments where ikebana arrangements and hanging scrolls are often seen today; this is also the place where a family altar can be found.  
> \- setsubun is likewise a real holiday (though not a national one--go figure), and can also be wiki'd. Credit on this front must be extended to JoIsBishMyoga, who has already covered the nuances of this holiday most effectively in her work _The Best Defense_; I didn't borrow the idea to include it from her, but I didn't think to write about the energy-absorbing properties of soybeans until I read her very smart rendition. Cheers, Jo!  
> \- bake-nezumi means rat demon, but is more typically taken to refer to fire rats. 'Bake' is a modifier that suggests a weak demonic nature, and is typically given to lower-level animal demons that can't change form (so, for example, a bake-neko would be a cat demon too weak to take on human shape, unlike youkai, which tend to be humanoid or have humanoid properties).  
> \- to clarify that scene with Yuusuke, as one of my sisters informed me that it wasn't as simple as I felt it was: no, he doesn't know. Rather, he's making two assumptions: one, that Hiei is the only demon good enough to score a hit like that on Kurama; and two, that Hiei is always hanging around Kurama, which makes him the most likely candidate for fighting. Now, thanks to this scene I think Yuusuke is going to figure it out pretty quickly, but prior to this I did have him in the dark.  
> \- flower viewing (hanami) is a national activity in Japan when the sakura (cherry trees) reach their peak.  
> \- aidokusho just means a favorite book; so, sort of like places here called 'the cozy cafe', or somesuch.  
> \- that conversation Kurama has with Asahi was probably my first attempt to write something which conformed to the concepts of tatemae (public face) and honne (true feelings) after my JP lit professor first lectured us on them. We do something similar here in the states, though 'presenting a good face' is usually our phrase, something we're usually expected to do when we've been disappointed by or about something. What I think is important to stress about the Japanese manifestation of this concept, however, is how universally it's expected from people; directness isn't valued as highly as subtlety, whereas I think people here in the States who are viewed as subtle are also sometimes viewed as untrustworthy. Not to say that we don't believe in tact; I just think forthrightness is usually seen as a more positive attribute.  
> \- I totally made up grey dragon tea.


End file.
